1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the invention relate to the field of microprocessor systems, and more specifically, to storage systems.
2. Description of Related Art
Recent advances in storage technology have provided a variety of storage devices and interface protocols. Examples of these devices and protocols include Serial Attached Small Computer System Interface (SAS), Fiber Channel (FC), Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA), Internet Small Computer System Interface (ISCSI), Host Bus Adapter (HBA), etc.
Currently, storage devices handle input/output (I/O) sequences in a serial fashion as single threads. For small or medium storage systems, single-threaded I/O processing may be adequate to satisfy I/O demands. However, large storage systems using high performance processors such as multi-core, multi-processor systems with virtual I/O and hyper-threading technology typically require an increasing number of I/O sequences. For these systems, it is difficult for single-threaded storage devices to keep up with the required number of I/O sequences.